Lost Egyptian pyramids found ... by Google?

Images from Google Earth reveal what appear to be two long-lost pyramid complexes.

Have two new Egyptian pyramids been located thousands of years after they were last seen by human eyes? That may be the case, as images from Google Earth appear to show two long-lost pyramid complexes in Upper Egypt near the city of Abu Sidhum, Discovery News reports.

The images were identified by satellite archaeology researcher Angela Micol, who posted her observations on her website, Google Earth Anomalies.

Google Earth is a 3D virtual globe and mapping program that combines satellite imagery and aerial photography. First created by a company funded by the Central Intelligence Agency, the program was acquired by Google in 2004.

Egypt's best-known pyramids, including the fabled Great Pyramid, are located at Giza, not far from the capital city of Cairo, but 115 others are known to be scattered throughout the country. That number keeps growing. Most recently, the so-called "headless pyramid" was rediscovered in 2008. The 4,000-year-old structure had been documented by archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius in 1842 but it was lost when desert sands covered it back up for more than a century and a half.

The two new sites are located about 90 miles from each other and Micol has verified with Egyptologists that they are not among the 118 known pyramids. "The images speak for themselves. It's very obvious what the sites may contain but field research is needed to verify they are, in fact, pyramids and evidence should be gathered to determine their origins," Micol said in a press release on her site.

The first of the two sites contains what Micol characterizes as "a distinct, four-sided, truncated, pyramidal shape that is approximately 140 feet in width." The site also contains three small mounds aligned in a diagonal manner similar to the pyramids at Giza.

The second site, shown in the photo above, contains four mounds, the two largest of which are each 250 feet in width. The smaller mounds are each approximately 100 feet wide.

Micol has not revealed the exact locations of the two sites, saying they must first be identified and protected by Egyptian officials.

The researcher has been using satellite images for 10 years to identify previously unknown sites. She recently released an image she identified as a possible underwater city located near the coast of the Yucatan peninsula.

Micol says she is forming a nonprofit organization to promote satellite archaeology and remote sensing and is raising money to fund a documentary about the some of the sites she has unearthed using Google Earth.